Celebrating the sunburnt country

24/01/2012 , 5:41 PM by Michele Phillips

With Australia Day coming up, it's interesting to look in your average Aussie souvenir shop and take note of the things overseas tourists are taking home with them - the things that say to the rest of the world, "This is Australia."

Apart from the usual tea towels and t-shirts, an amazingly high number involve alcohol and dead animals.

There are hundreds of kinds of stubby holders, bottle openers made from kangaroo paws and just about everything made from cane toads (the most bizarre being a bow tie with the toad's head as the knot).

﻿You can even get your own back on the species that killed Steve Irwin by buying a stingray-skin wallet.

But...is this sort of thing a true reflection of the way we are?

According to a survey commissioned by the National Australia Day Council, no.

Of the people surveyed, 93 per cent named Australia Day as the most significant on the national calendar and thought it was important to celebrate a whole host of Australian attitudes and characteristics, not one of them involving a dead marsupial.

"Freedom", "unique landscape and environment" and "cultural diversity" were mentioned along with "independence" and "democracy" as being a huge part of our identity.